After last reviewing Final Battle 2008, and seeing Ring Of Honor still get things right on a big show, the next step is to see if a B-show, something that Gabe Sapolsky would still pack chock full of good wrestling and great action, but without much in the way of character progression, and three DVDs came through my door which were the very definition of B-show recently, that being Motor City Madness and both nights of Proving Ground.

Motor City Madness was a flat show that, even though you’d start with established stars like Bryan Danielson and Austin Aries winning matches, in the case of Danielson clearly having a really fun time against Addicted To Love Rhett Titus, the rest of the show is very much filler. I have no interest in a Roderick Strong/Erik Stevens tag team, as although Strong is clearly a much better babyface than his ill-advised 2007/8 heel run, Stevens is just a random big indy geek to me. We had Jerry Lynn and Tyler Black in a “two guys doing moves” match that went to a mind-numbing 20 minute draw.

I thought when Gabe left that was supposed to be the end of shit like that, people were supposed to project characters and matches would happen for a reason. Apparently not.

Nigel McGuiness’ performance in his non-title victory over Jay Briscoe was head and shoulders the best thing on the show, Nigel can work the crowd fantastically, and Jay definitely showed the potential to break out of his role as a tag team guy, he’s perfect if ROH ever want a Steve Austin style “take no shit babyface World Champion” figure, and I’d be more than happy if these two wrestled each other all the time. Steen and Generico retaining the tag team titles over The American Wolves in the main event had some good action, sure, but considering it was Generico’s big return against the team that took him out and injured him, you definitely didn’t get the sense that this was a big match, and considering it was the main even you’d have to say that was a disappointment. Overall I was just BORED watching this, and where a good ROH show I used to be able to sit through in one sitting, this show took me about a month, seriously after watching Brent Albright wrestle Claudio Castagnoli in a dull as shit match I didn’t want to hear the words “Ring Of Honor” for about two weeks, never mind actually watch one of their matches – and even under Gabe’s worst “throw two guys out there and do spots” stuff I was at least never bored to the point I didn’t want to watch again.

I found Proving Ground Night One to be a really enjoyable show. Maybe because it was a break from the normal stale format of Ring Of Honor shows in terms of even paced matches with the usual names taking on each other, but that made things slightly less predictable and much more fun.

The point of the Proving Ground shows were that local (ie Florida-based) indy guys, as well as big names like Bison Smith were given their chances in ROH. This meant Brad Attitude and Shawn Osbourne working your regular ROH even paced opener felt fresh just because it was two new guys, and Bison Smith, after running in on other people’s matches, beat a jobber in a good old fashioned squash match, where he gave his opponent nothing and just killed the poor guy with power moves that made Bison look like a killing machine – proof that to get your point across not every great match has to be a *****1/2 25-minute MOTYC. I’m not sure babyface Bobby Dempsey is a great idea, OK people got their payoff on the Caged Collision PPV from him being abused for a year by Larry Sweeney, but here it was a comedy fat guy trying to play the regular babyface role and he just looked ridiculous, he’s far from a Dusty Rhodes where he had the incredible charisma where being so out of shape didn’t matter. I even liked Austin Aries’ singles match with Necro Butcher just because, with Aries trying out his new cowardly cocky heel character, they have such a contrast that it made for an entertaining bout.

The Age Of The Fall tag proved further good news for ROH in that it was Jerry Lynn’s best performance in six years, which bodes well for him going into his World Title run, although that match did fall into the category of irrelevant stuff done to fill up a card. Even the great Nigel McGuiness trying every trick in the book couldn’t make a Brent Albright match interesting. The best example on the show of how to use new people came when Dark City Fight Club had their match with Kevin Steen and El Generico. The ROH tag team champions were portrayed a level above, but the new team impressed more than enough for people to want to see them back, without making the champions look weak for selling for nobodies. The main event, Tyler Black v. Davey Richards, is the kind of match that ROH’s previous booking regime would’ve put 3rd on the card, and they’d have worked the exact same match they worked here. Difference is, here it was the main event, and therefore it worked. Well, it worked to a degree, as it did prove that ROH desperately needs Nigel McGuiness or Bryan Danielson in the match for it to be seen as main event worthy.

Richards is developing well and did some excellent heel touches (although some message board guys referring to 2009 Davey Richards as “the greatest heel of all time” are so far off the mark it’s laughable), and Tyler is a good babyface, but he’s a magical babyface against Nigel, and Davey being a heelish prick to Danielson would be something really special.

Night Two of Proving Ground was a much better structured show. It followed the theme of having lots of new talent on the show, and was built in a way where, if they’d done the first two matches as squashes to entirely showcase first Jerry Lynn and second the tag team of Kenny King and Rhett Titus, rather than doing them as even paced matches against guys nobody has heard of and, by watching the matches, are WAY short of being ready for a company like Ring Of Honor even as lower card guys.

I love how they’re using Bison Smith, in his case they did a squash match again that got him over once more as a monster. Then we got two ROH midcard matches, wrestled like midcard matches rather than main events, between established guys as first of all Kevin Steen beat Davey Richards in a really good match based on Steen selling a knee injury that prevented him doing his trademark moves, so he was able to counter Richards’ Texas Cloverleaf attempt with a small package for the three count. Richards is very good in his heel bully role, but I worry about Steen, he is noticeably heavier than he was a year ago and needs to cut at least some weight if he’s going to be a World Champion in ROH or move to a higher company.

Jimmy Jacobs and Delirious v. Necro Butcher and Tyler Black went to a DQ finish in what was just a way to keep their feud going and get these guys on the card. Necro has a certain charm as a heel because his reckless carless homeless guy who can beat the fuck out of you character is something to fear, but it’s certainly not something to admire or aspire to, which are qualities you’d look for in a top line babyface. Then we got two more established talent v. new talent matches, and these were competitive and rightly so, as Brad Attitude had a decent match with Austin Aries, while Dark City Fight Club and Francisco Ciatso had a six man tag match against Roderick Strong and the two most boring wrestlers ever Brent Albright and Erik Stevens. Quite what poor Roddy has done to be saddled with those two sacks of crap is a mystery. Those two matches saw the new guys who in Attitude’s case have a good look, and in Dark City Fight Club and Ciatso’s case a good look, good in-ring and good crowd reactions, get focused on and put themselves over as potential future stars. Then, amazingly considering the semi-main involved Bryan Danielson and the main involved Nigel McGuiness, the show ended really badly.

Danielson’s match with El Generico showed that ROH really don’t do enough to protect the aura of their top guys. There’s no fucking way a company icon like Danielson should be doing comedy midcard matches in a “nudge nudge wink wink we’re entertaining and making the people laugh” kind of way, especially when it’s clear Danielson knows that and spends half the time just thinking “fuck this I’m being a vicious matworking bastard” then its’ back to the bullshit. WWE didn’t book Undertaker v. Festus on SmackDown last year like this because they know Taker is a top star and top stars are worth protecting, and that match was great, infinitely better than this one. Then in the main event slot, something which ROH has done a great job of protecting as the spot where you’re guaranteed a great match, saw Nigel McGuiness defend the title against D-Lo Brown. Fuck, you can see that shit on any other indy promotion across the country, have some random guy who was a star ten years ago in main events. Why not get X-Pac since he’s still a top worker when healthy, or Buff Bagwell since ROH’s top guy fucking him up would get amazing heat?

Nigel won, but even so it wasn’t to the standard of his usual matches, and D-Lo got to get his heat back by laying him out afterwards. Way to make your World Champion look like a chump. OK fair enough if it was for Steve Austin but D-Lo Brown? Seriously?

My overall feelings on these three shows are basically that ROH clearly thought the stacked cards and long matches right throughout had to go, but they hadn’t a clue how to replace it. So basically stick to the PPVs and the big shows if you want great wrestling, as the in between shows are really just for completists, and hopefully for ROH there’s enough of those to keep the company afloat, because, when they’re booked right, guys like Nigel and Danielson and The Briscoes are great enough and over enough that you really want to see them do great stuff on a platform that allows this.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com